


gone too far [yeah i'm gone again]

by pagan_mint



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Murder, Psychic Finch, but no actual death!!, hey Reese whatcha thinkin about, oh you know just killing my boss, rinch if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-09-02 04:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16779793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagan_mint/pseuds/pagan_mint
Summary: Harold Finch is a psychic who can Reach into people's minds to see what they're thinking. Lately, he's been particularly interested in the thoughts of John Reese, and is not surprised to find out that they focus heavily on killing - though it is surprising that they're about killinghim.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from "bullet" by hollywood undead
> 
> turns out I write way more fanfiction when I'm putting off doing other things that I actually need to be doing. anyway I read some Venom fics that dealt with Eddie casually thinking about death and suicide and Venom getting upset about it, and my brain whispered "John Reese," and here we are

John Reese thinks about death far too often.

Harold Finch knows this because he can’t help himself - he Reaches, every so often, brushing the psychic power even he does not fully understand against the edges of Reese’s mind. Always the very surface, never deep, never probing - and that is how he knows death is something Reese is always contemplating, always aware of, whether he wants to be or not.

During the first months of his new job, Finch is pleased to find that Reese’s thoughts about death are mostly regarding how to prevent it in others. He has spent so long killing, being used as a murder machine by the CIA, that he has to put conscious effort into thinking about how _not_ to kill someone. Eventually he comes around to the conclusion that kneecapping people isn't fatal and keeps them from causing more trouble, and is thus effective enough. Finch can't say he wholly approves, but at least it isn't murder.

Murder is what comes next - is what is shocking, because Reese thinks almost daily about killing Harold Finch.

The other man shies away from it, at first; the images are brutal, vicious, efficient. Some are almost, horrifyingly, humorous; he catches a glimpse of himself being garroted with the cord of his computer mouse, and one time Reese indulges in a particularly absurd but no less effective series of mental exercises on the number of ways he could kill Finch with the stapler on the desk.

(Finch starts to keep the stapler in a drawer, after that.)

As time passes, Finch pays more attention to the imagined scenarios of his own murder, because he and Reese are becoming something close to friends, and nothing about the man implies that he would go through with these fantasies he regularly indulges in. Finch supposes it could simply be restless energy, directing itself in the way Reese was trained to do so by the CIA, but he has no way of knowing. Yet. So he Reaches deeper, lets a scenario run its course despite his displeasure at seeing himself die, more so that it is at the hands of the man he is growing to trust most in the world.

That's how he learns that behind each grisly death is a practical, but unpleasant purpose.

Finch sits engrossed in his computer screens; Reese walks up soundlessly behind him and slits his throat. But because he has let himself dig a little further, connect more closely with Reese's psyche, Finch catches the rest - catches the immediate dismissal, the whisper of _fixed it,_ and he withdraws and sits back and thinks.

It's the matter of seconds to connect Reese's curl of satisfaction with the slightly changed angle of his desk and chair, one that gives him better visibility of the entry gate, lessens the possibility of someone sneaking up and finishing Finch.

"Oh," Finch breathes, and cycles through the other murders he's caught in a flash, making connections, realizations. _"Oh."_

He is pleased that Reese doesn't want to kill him, of course. He is less pleased with the sheer amount of increasingly creative scenarios for his death that Reese has come up with, and made minor adjustments to prevent. He supposes he should be grateful that one of them is doing something about it.

Then the scenarios take a darker turn. When Finch and Reese are trapped, in danger, when he is fumbling at the keypad on a bomb vest and time is running out. He catches the look Reese is giving him, calm and unbearably fond, and Reaches despite himself.

Reese's mental projection reaches out and snaps Finch's neck as the timer hits zero, saving him from being yet another victim of Kara's machinations.

"Pick a winner, Finch," Reese rasps, and Finch bites back his response.

_I already have._


	2. wherein john reese continues to lack any kind of chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> idk I apparently wrote this in full and then just. never posted it?? so here you go.

Finch Reaches for Reese in the early morning. He doesn't intend to; it's absent-minded, muscle memory. He is simply thinking of Reese, and then he is in Reese's thoughts.

  
His partner is shaving with a straight-edge razor. One that glides across the defined plane of Reese's jaw and down to the elegant line of his throat, where it digs in and carves a bloody gash in the delicate skin -

  
Finch is already calling. The image dissipates, becomes a flurry of warmly fond thoughts of Finch (at his desk, at the movies, walking Bear) before Reese picks up.

  
"Yeah?"

  
"Mr. Reese." Finch has regained his composure. "Join me for breakfast."

* * *

Finch is reading. Reese is stripping a gun in the other room, separate but within line of sight. Finch watches him work over the top of his hefty novel, watches the taut line of Reese's shoulders. Frowns. Reaches.

  
There is another weapon on the table nearby, already cleaned and reassembled. Reese takes it, lifts it to his head, the exact spot where its effect is guaranteed to be immediate and painless.

  
Reese is sitting still, but Finch is on his feet. His book falls to the floor.

  
"Finch? What's up?"

  
"Nothing," he murmurs, proud that the tremor in his hands is not evident in his voice. "Just... stretching. That's all."

* * *

Reese is taken, their number craftier than the two men gave him credit for. Reese is taken, hidden away, but Finch finds him, because the number isn't that crafty. Finds him chained to a wall in a basement, black-eyed and wrists bleeding from his attempts to yank himself free. He looks up at the sound of Finch's halting step on the stairs. His eyes widen. Finch Reaches immediately.

  
Reese digs teeth into his own wrist, bites and tears until he reaches a vein, tasting the copper heat of his life on his tongue as it bleeds out onto the dirty floor. He feels a fierce satisfaction, the knowledge that he's beaten his captor to being able to get any information out of him that would lead to Finch -

  
"Sorry I'm late," Finch rasps. It sounds hollow to his ears. After all, he is barely in time.

  
Reese, improbably, manages a smile. "Let's go home," he says, and Finch lets more of the relief and warmth that he feels at the word show through in his responding grin than he intended.

* * *

They pass a man in the street who looks dangerous, a man with a stormy expression and a hand tucked in his coat. Reese nudges into Finch, ensuring that they give the stranger a wide berth, and as is wont to happen in the case of physical contact, Finch catches the tail end of a thought.

  
The man draws a gun, aims. There's no time - Reese steps into it, takes the shot, the next one, the next, the man is emptying the clip into him but John has a vice grip on his hand and snaps his wrist around, pulls the trigger, ends the man before he can end Finch -

  
"No," Finch says, and doesn't realize he's said it out loud until Reese's pace beside him falters.

  
"No?"

  
_"No,"_ he repeats, and quickens his step.

  
They're back at the library before Finch elaborates, wheeling on Reese.

  
"Who do you think you are, to decide how I get to die, how _you_ get to die?"

  
Reese doesn't flinch from the question.

  
"Death is what I know," he answers. "Death is what I'm good at."

  
"Not anymore," Finch snaps, hackles up. "You're in the business of _life,_ these days. I don't see how you can do that effectively when you're thinking about how you can get yourself killed at every turn."

  
Reese looks at him, long and serious with more than hint of that quietly tragic sorrow that he thinks he does a better job of hiding, and Finch catches _anyone can shoot a gun,_ catches _as much a shield as a weapon._

  
Just like that, he is searingly, incandescently _furious._

  
John Reese is a six-foot-two trained assassin who could effortlessly disable Harold Finch with the press of a finger, who can think of sixteen ways to kill him in under a minute with just his hands, who does on a practically daily basis. Finch has him backed up against a bookshelf before he realizes he's moved, Reese's shoulders pressing into a leatherbound collection of _Encyclopedia Britannica._

  
"There is a certain amount of self-sacrifice bound into your nature that I am aware I must permit, Mr. Reese. But I am _not_ the CIA, and I will _not_ tolerate you thinking of yourself in any terms other than a _necessary_ and _treasured_ member of this team." He further emphasizes his point by prodding a finger into Reese's chest. The taller man reacts to the touch, inhaling sharply and rising slightly onto his toes. Finch disregards this, more interested in making sure that he is getting his point across. "Do I make myself quite clear?"

  
"Sir," Reese says roughly. Finch narrows his eyes.

  
"Do. I. Make. Myself. _Clear?"_

  
"Yes," Reese responds. Finch gives him a hard look.

  
"This job will kill us both, Mr. Reese. I maintain no illusions on that point. But I would not have that happen anytime soon, for any reason that either of us can control. That includes taking unnecessary risks, or upkeeping a thought process that will make you more willing or likely to do so." He steps back, softens his tone, though it takes some effort. "As much as I do appreciate your constant vigilance, please consider that without you as my partner, I would find doing what we do..." He pauses, perhaps for longer than he should, searching for the right word. Reese watches him, slate-blue eyes sharp and bright. _"Untenable."_

  
Reese stiffens at that, just slightly, but enough. Enough for Finch to brush against his thoughts, concerned, curious despite himself.

  
_very private person numbers are priority get it together John shit shit -_

  
Finch pulls away, too fast, sees Reese give a flinch that's little more than a blink. He needs to stop. He's in Reese's mind more and more often, these days, and if he doesn't stop he's going to see something, hear something he shouldn't, something he won't know what to do with. Something he can't afford to be distracted by.

  
They don't talk about it again. But Reese does listen. Finch knows he listens, because when a number slips past their defences and puts a gun to Finch's head, Reese's thoughts during the rescue are so _loud_ that Finch would put them on mute if he knew how to. It's all the brutality, all the cruelty that he knows how to inflict, directed towards this investment banker who was foolish enough to try threatening the man he knew as Harold Crane. It's visceral, explicit, leaves Finch breathless and horrified and in awe that when he finally manages to tear himself away, all the man has suffered is a bruised face and wrists starting to bleed from being tied too tight.

  
"Very good," Finch gasps, because he is still playing the role of Crane and Crane is the sort of man who would give his private security patronizing praise in front of their unwitting victim. And that - _that_ earns him an obscene rush of dopamine, because apparently Reese's feelings are still screaming themselves into the atmosphere and apparently praise from Finch makes him feel like - _this._

  
" _Very_ good," Finch says again, when it's just them and the library and the ritual teardown of the suspect wall.

  
"Just doing my job," Reese responds. And there's something to the words, some edge, that has Finch Reaching to find out what it is.

  
"Very good," Kara Stanton says, and then she's kissing Reese hard, a kiss he doesn't want, as they stand over the body of a man she just forced him to dissect piece by piece, breath by sobbing breath, a man Reese is sure was innocent.

  
In the library, Finch watches Reese's lips tug into a tiny smile, feels a rush of fondness for Finch, for this job, for everything he's done.

  
"Yes," Finch says quietly, turning back to the board and pulling down the investment banker's photo. "I suppose you were."


End file.
